Federal Grand Jury to Indict Two Top NYPD Officials

NEW YORK CITY — A federal grand jury is expected to indict two top NYPD officials and their businessman friend on bribery-related charges as early as Friday, DNAinfo New York has learned.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara has been presenting evidence against Deputy Chief Michael Harrington, Deputy Inspector James Grant and Brooklyn businessman Jeremy Reichberg since their arrest last month in an alleged pay-for-favors scheme, sources said.

One source said the indictments are imminent.

Lawyers for Harrington and Grant declined to comment. Reichberg's attorney did not immediately return a call for comment.

The feds allege that Reichberg and another businessman, Jona Rechnitz, who was a large donor to Mayor Bill de Blasio, spent at least $100,000 to grease Grand and Harrington with cash, gifts and trips.

The result, Bharara said, was that the businessmen had “cops on call” to do their bidding, including providing police escorts, closing a Lincoln Tunnel lane for a rich friend or sending officers to intervene in business squabbles.

Sources and records show Rechnitz became a cooperating witness for the feds after he was snared in another bribery scheme involving Norman Seabrook, the head of the city correction officers' union, who allegedly received $65,000 in bribes in exchange for funneling $20 million in union pension money to a hedge fund operated by a friend of Rechnitz.

Rechnitz has already pleaded guilty to bribery charges, but has not yet been sentenced pending his cooperation.

The businessmen's access went to the highest levels of the NYPD, including then-Chief of Department Philip Banks, who is also a boyhood friend of Seabrook. Banks, who has not been accused of any wrong doing, and Seabrook, went on international trips with Rechnitz and Reichberg.

Rechnitz, who hails from California, and Reichberg, who is from Brooklyn, both served on de Blasio’s inauguration committee.

They met roughly four years ago, and Rechnitz brought Reichberg into several successful real estate deals in Brooklyn, according to people who know them.

At the time, Reichberg was already a well-entrenched NYPD police buff and longtime friends with Grant, who had commanded several Brooklyn precincts, including the 66th Precinct in Borough Park.

According to the feds, Rechnitz and Reichberg allegedly used their clout with the NYPD to get Grant transferred to run the 19th Precinct on the Upper East Side, and boasted on secretly recorded wiretaps that they even had the power to pick the next police commissioner.

In addition to Harrington and Grant, a handful of other police officials have been arrested and accused of accepting bribes in exchange for handing out of gun licenses to unqualified applicants.